Celebrated mime Marceau voices his personal artistic credo in this short, deceptively simple tale. Pimporello, a middle-aged, disillusioned Italian street mime down on his luck, befriends Nina, a shy, frightened orphan who idolizes him. Each deceives the other with a big white lie, the unmasking of which produces shattering consequences. Believing that his art reflects humanity's desire for a better life, for goodness, peace and justice, Pimporello feels he carries a heavy burden. There is a grand, dreamlike epiphany involving a circus, and at the end the reader, along with the street mime, is left wondering which events were real, which illusory. Narrowly avoiding sentimentality, this magical, engaging story is a parable on the risk-taking artist who creates reality through artifice. Marceau's puckish, ethereal drawings amplify the text. (Oct.)